


Brother

by Elektra Pendragon (elekdragon)



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-18
Updated: 2003-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elekdragon/pseuds/Elektra%20Pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Frodo slips into the shadows, he becomes one with the Wraiths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Occurs after Frodo is stabbed by the Morgul blade in FotR

The Nazgul called to him.

Frodo could feel them inside his mind, their voices crying out for a response; every other thought was drowned in the noise of it. He could smell them on the wind, a spicy-sweet scent not quite unpleasant. The air shivered with their breath, shattered with their song.

His friends' voices floated around him--Sam's sad whispers and Pippin's worried high voice--but the tones were dull and empty compared to the beautiful cries that shimmered in the night air.

They called for him in their ancient tongue, and though he did not know the language, he could understand their words, the desire that boiled beneath the wailing music. "Brother...come to us...we cannot see you. Come into the shadows."

/Brother./ Never had Frodo heard the word uttered with such painful longing. It pulled at him, touching a place deep inside, calling to the very heart of his being. He couldn't stop his throat from opening, a wail tearing through his lips as he cried out to them. His own song was pale, pathetic compared to theirs, but he could feel the response, the way the tightness in his skin eased as though he were melting into the ground. The shadows were coming up around him to cradle him, carry him away to his brothers. From the bottom of his soul he ached for them.

The light was startling. It flowed over the darkness, parting it and pushing it to the side. The insubstantial arms that held Frodo tight slowly unwound, and he was left alone, hurting, as the white-gold brightness drove away the dark. Frodo watched, helpless, as a figure stepped out from the brightness--a woman on a horse. She dismounted and approached, her words a clumsy tumble of noise. The tightness returned, burning across Frodo's skin, trapping him in this terrible dawn. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could only burn.

Vaguely, Frodo was aware of movement, of shadows and light and burning across his back as he moved further and further away from his brothers. He wanted to call to them, but the air was thick in his lungs, his throat aching and unable to create the sound. He concentrated his thoughts on them. "I am here. Come to me," he called to them silently, and distantly Frodo could feel the tug on his senses, the assurance that, yes, they had found him.

He felt them before he heard them; a clawing at his throat, a whisper in his mind, a weight lifted from his soul. Once again he felt that sensation of dissolution, like melting away into the shadows though he could no longer see the darkness for the light that surrounded him. Their voices rose up around him, no longer calling to him but cursing the one who stole him, who kept him from the shadows. They snarled as they closed in around Frodo, demanding the return of their lost brother. They mourned his absence. They ached for him.

A hand reached out for him, a blessedly cool shadow against the painful brightness that stung his eyes. He wanted nothing but to press his face into that hand, to feel its coolness cover his fevered flesh and make the pain go away. A whisper in his mind--"Brother"--and he was leaning to the side, feeling gravity having no sway upon his body anymore.

Agony, pure agony as he was torn away from that hand, that connection. It hurt like no other wound to feel that distance between them, the falling away of his brothers. The motion stopped, and Frodo could see them in the distance, across a great shining valley of fiery brightness that flowed between them like water. He could feel pressure all around him of something wanting him gone away from this place; the very light rejected him.

They were so close! All of them, so close he could smell their spice-sweetness in the burning air, the shadows that clung to their bodies and bathed them in sacred darkness. If he could have moved, he would have thrown himself towards them, sacrificed himself in the river to at least no longer have to feel this pain of separation.

Instead, his brothers drew their swords and dove into the river of light, determined to win him back from his captor. Already he could feel their hands upon him, holding him, bearing him up above this pain so that he was once again part of them, safe and cradled within the soothing coolness of the blackness. He wanted to cry out, to sing in victory--but the clumsy noise of his captor drowned it out.

The bright river swelled, and to his horror Frodo watched the brilliant fire consume his brothers. "Brother!" they screamed, before they were trampled and thrown and washed far away from Frodo. The white river settled, and there was not a trace of their shadows left to comfort him.

Frodo was alone, and no one could save him now. He felt the darkness come towards him, but this was a different dark, a void without the comfort of his brothers. The light that had encompassed him rose up in brilliance until it was a plain war of black and white, without any thought of safety. His brothers were destroyed, surely, by that fire, and now he was utterly alone. Frodo let himself fall into whatever arms would hold him, sure that in his despair he would be lost. Brilliance burned his eyes, the void froze his fingers, and soon one of the sides would win.


End file.
